Recognition

First published Fri Aug 23, 2013

Recognition has both a normative and a psychological dimension. Arguably, if you recognize another person with regard to a certain feature, as
an autonomous agent, for example, you do not only admit that she has
this feature but you embrace a positive attitude towards her for having
this feature. Such recognition implies that you bear obligations
to treat her in a certain way, that is, you recognize a specific
normative status of the other person, e.g., as a free and equal person.
But recognition does not only matter normatively. It is also of
psychological importance. Most theories of recognition assume that in
order to develop a practical identity, persons fundamentally depend on
the feedback of other subjects (and of society as a whole). According
to this view, those who fail to experience adequate recognition, i.e.,
those who are depicted by the surrounding others or the societal norms
and values in a one-sided or negative way, will find it much harder to
embrace themselves and their projects as valuable. Misrecognition
thereby hinders or destroys persons' successful relationship to
their selves. It has been poignantly described how the victims of
racism and colonialism have suffered severe psychological harm by being
demeaned as inferior humans (Fanon 1952). Thus, recognition constitutes
a “vital human need” (Taylor 1992, 26).

Recognition theory is thought to be especially well-equipped to
illuminate the psychological mechanisms of social and political
resistance. As experiences of misrecognition violate the identity of
subjects, the affected are supposed to be particularly motivated to
resist, that is, to engage in a “struggle for recognition.”
Therefore, at least since the 1990s, theories of recognition have
enjoyed a lively academic as well as public interest. They promise to
illuminate a variety of new social movements—be it the
struggles of ethnic or religious minorities, of gays and lesbians or of
people with disabilities. None of these groups primarily fight for a
more favorable distribution of goods. Rather, they struggle for an
affirmation of their particular identity and are thus thought
to be engaged in a new form of politics, sometimes labeled
“politics of difference” or “identity
politics.” However, many accounts want to ascribe a much more
fundamental role to the concept of recognition—covering the
morality of human relationships in its entirety. From this more general
perspective, also earlier campaigns for equal rights—be it by
workers, women or African Americans—should be understood as
“struggles for recognition.” To frame these political
movements in terms of recognition highlights the relational character
of morality—and justice: Justice is not primarily concerned
with how many goods a person should have but rather with what kind of
standing vis-à-vis other persons she deserves (Young 1990).

This entry will first discuss some controversies surrounding the
very concept of recognition (1) before reviewing four dimensions of
what is recognized (by whom and on what
grounds) that have been highlighted by different theories of
recognition (2). However, even in light of these differentiations some
authors have expressed the fear that concentrating on the issue of
recognition might supplant the central problem of (re)distribution on
the political agenda (3). Finally, the often rather sanguine
descriptions of recognition and its potential for emancipation (4)
have been fundamentally challenged: The concern is that because the
need for recognition renders persons utterly dependent on the
dominating societal norms it may undermine the identity of any critic. Thus, some worry that struggles for recognition may lead to
conformism and a strengthening of ideological formations (5).

Recognition presupposes a subject of recognition (the recognizer)
and an object (the recognized). Before asking what kind of subjects and
objects of recognition are possible (1.2) this entry discusses what it
means to “recognize” and how it differs from neighboring
concepts such as “identification” and
“acknowledgment” (1.1).

Paul Ricoeur has distinguished as much as 23 different usages of the
notion “to recognize” (Ricoeur 2005, 5–16) grouping them
under three main categories, namely recognition as identification,
recognizing oneself and mutual recognition. Many authors have
challenged Ricoeur's view by proposing a distinction between
recognition (of oneself as well as of others) and
“identification”: Whereas we identify an X as an X without
necessarily affirming it as (and because of) X, recognition requires a
positive evaluation of X. The term “acknowledgment” which
some authors use interchangeably with recognition (Appiah 1992, 149) is
also contested. Whereas some have argued that we acknowledge the
validity of certain insights, values and norms
(Ikäheimo/Laitinen 2007, 34–37), others continue to use the term
“acknowledgment” with regard to persons but intend it to
denote something less ambitious than the wholesale affirmation of their
specific identity (Cavell 1969; Markell 2003). However, it is the
meaning of mutual recognition that lies at the heart of the
contemporary discussion.

Mutuality has always served as the explanatory and normative core of
the concept of recognition. Most theories draw on G. W. F. Hegel who
was, in turn, heavily influenced by Johann Gottlieb Fichte (for their
common roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau see Neuhouser 2010). According to
Fichte we become conscious of our own autonomy by being challenged—or as Fichte would characterize it: “called upon”—by the actions of another subject. Only by understanding that
the other's actions are intentional can we also grasp our own
actions and utterances as expressions of an intentional self. This
thought is most famously expressed in Hegel's Phenomenology
of Spirit where this interpersonal encounter logically culminates
in a struggle of life and death (see esp. Kojève 1947 whose
reading strongly influenced Jean-Paul Sartre and Jacques Lacan; also
the contributions in O'Neill 1996). Within the
Phenomenology this idea is first and foremost a thesis about
how we can gain self-consciousness as autonomous agents,
namely only by interacting with other autonomous subjects (see in more
detail 2.1 below). However, this idea also leads Hegel to consider the
importance of differing forms of mutual recognition. Already in his
early writings in the Jena Realphilosophie of 1805/06 Hegel
expands the Fichtean motif by referring to the Hobbesian figure of a
fundamental struggle—albeit not of self-interest but of
recognition. In Hegel's story of the state of nature social
relationships are a (perhaps forgotten) given: A person who attacks
your property does not primarily want to gain material goods. Rather,
she wishes to remind you, the first possessor, that she is a person
with moral standing as well who has been neglected by the act of
taking first possession (Siep 1979, 39; Honneth 1992, 44–45). As becomes
especially clear in the Phenomenology: By fighting against the
other the subject wants to affirm her own freedom by proving that her
normative status is of more importance to her than any of her (animal)
desires, including—at an extreme—her desire to live.
However, such fighting, expressive of autonomy, must lead to an impasse
as it cannot achieve mutual recognition: either one of the subjects
dies or subjects herself as a slave to the other, the superior master,
and thus fails to express her autonomy. Furthermore, in this case the
master does not receive adequate recognition either, because the
recognizer has proven to be a “mere” slave who does not
count as an autonomous and competent judge. Thus, adequate recognition
can only be achieved within an institutionalized order of
rights that secures genuinely mutual recognition (Williams 1997,
59–68). Hegel develops this latter thought most systematically in his
mature Philosophy of Right. Here, the relationships and
implicit norms of the three spheres of, first, love within the family,
second, contractual respect within civil society and, third, solidarity
within the state are supposed to be necessary in order to actualize
individual autonomy, but not in the sense of mere
“negative” but of “social” freedom. These
spheres allow the subjects to feel at home within (or
“reconciled” with) the ethical life of their community
(which is organized as a state) because it provides the subjects with
the meanings necessary for a fulfilling individual life that they can
embrace (see also 2.3 below).

It has been argued that focusing on the idea of mutuality may limit
the scope of recognition too much. Rather, we should distinguish
between a narrow understanding of recognition based on the feature of
mutuality and a wide understanding grounded in the idea of adequate
regard (Laitinen 2010). The latter reading emphasizes that by affirming
a valuable feature of any entity (i.e., also of animals and even
inanimate nature, not only of persons) we properly
‘recognize’ it regardless of whether the recognized object
realizes this fact (or is even able to do so). Thus, the wide
understanding allows for many objects of recognition that cannot
themselves be subjects of recognition. However, so far this constitutes
a minority position.

By contrast, because most theorists of recognition argue that
recognition is a genuinely interpersonal endeavor, they conclude that
only subjects of recognition can be proper objects of recognition.
At its margins, this narrow understanding of mutual recognition between
persons raises the question from which point onward children can start
to be subjects of recognition (and whether at least some animals can
qualify as such). Most theories of recognition—drawing, for
example, on psychoanalytic object-relations theory (see in more detail
2.4 below)—speak of recognition in the context of the
relationship between parents and babies. This suggests, of course, that
human babies face the surrounding world differently than even the most
developed animals do (see in more detail 2.1 below).

When it comes to the question of collective agency, there is still
considerable uncertainty within the literature. In the following, this
entry distinguishes between (i) groups, (ii) corporations or states and
(iii) institutions more generally. (i) Most authors readily grant that
(at least certain) groups of persons may be the subject and object of
(mis)recognition because a group can share collective intentions as
well as certain features for which it can be misrecognized (especially
if these features constitute the group's self-understanding).
(ii) It is more contested whether more complex collective actors such
as corporations or states—to the extent they are thought to
have a legal personality—can be regarded as subjects and
objects of recognition in the proper sense (see for the latter Rawls
1999, 34–35). For example, there is dissent about whether
they display genuinely autonomous collective intentions or whether the
acts of the “collective actor” are rather to be understood
as resulting from the mere aggregation of individual intentions, thus signifying
individual acts of (mis)recognition. Recently, there have been attempts
to introduce the notion of recognition into the field of International
Relations, beyond the common usage of a legal recognition of states.
Often enough, it is argued, the (violent) behavior of states cannot be
reductively understood as a merely instrumental striving for ever more
power but should (at least also) be perceived as a struggle for
recognition (see the contributions in Lindemann/Ringmar 2011 and
O'Neill/Smith 2012, part III). Certainly, citizens frequently speak as if their state was disrespected by another state but it
remains to be seen whether these citizens are in fact merely indignant
about their government being disrespected or they themselves
as members of the state. In both cases the recognition of
states presumably simply denotes a metaphorical usage. (iii) Finally,
what about institutions more generally? A lot depends on one's
definition of institutions, which can be part of a state (for example,
a state's constitution) or transcend state borders (as the
institution of the free global market). Institutions cannot as easily
be described as collective actors. Still, given that they are human
products, there is broad agreement that an institution (say, a
constitution) can disrespect persons because institutions, besides
effectively regulating behavior, always express—as well as
reinforce—underlying attitudes of those who designed or keep on
reproducing them. In distinguishing between a civilized society where
individuals do not humiliate each other and a decent society where at
least the institutions do not do so, Avishai Margalit (1996, 1–2)
explicitly affirms this point. Furthermore, political resistance as a
moral endeavor would prove to be unintelligible if we did not assume
that political institutions (and not only the agents acting within
them) could be subjects of misrecognition. But can institutions
themselves be misrecognized? Institutions can certainly be disregarded
but it may be argued that institutions (similar to values and norms)
are either “acknowledged” or not whereas it is only persons
or groups subject to these institutions who can be properly
“(mis)recognized” as only here (mis)recognition has
consequences for the object's self-conception.

We can differentiate the concept of recognition according
to the kind of features a person is recognized for. Most agree that only in a formal sense is recognition a vital human
need or an anthropological constant. New demands of recognition always
owe themselves to the historically established and changing ideas of
what kind of recognition we deserve. This is illustrated by the rather
recent historical development in which the premodern concept of honor
(which was assigned to persons as members of a group within a
hierarchical social structure) was divided into two parts: first, into
the modern notion of equal respect awarded to all agents capable of
autonomy and, second, into the idea of esteem due to one's
achievements. Whereas the former now guarantees a basic level of
recognition for everyone, the latter creates a hitherto unknown
insecurity with regard to the question of what kind of recognition one
deserves (Taylor 1992, 34–35); an insecurity which, according to some
authors, has led to the growing importance of intimate love and
friendship within the private sphere.

Kantians—and liberals more generally—usually
concentrate on the first dimension of the modern recognition order,
i.e., on respect for the equal dignity of autonomous beings. Hegelian
theories of recognition, by contrast, embrace a more encompassing view
of recognition attempting to cover all spheres of recognition within
modernity. Thus, in his classical text on the topic, “The
Politics of Recognition,” Charles Taylor distinguishes three
forms of recognition (Taylor 1992). Whereas a “politics of
universalism” aims at the equal recognition of all persons in
their common humanity, a “politics of difference”—as only one dimension of a politics of recognition (Blum 1998; Thompson
2006, 7–8)—emphasizes the uniqueness of specific (and
especially cultural) features (Taylor 1992, 37) often associated with
communitarianism. Finally, Taylor thematizes the recognition of
concrete individuality in contexts of loving care that are of utmost
importance to subjects. However, because love (as well as friendship)
is, according to him, a purely private phenomenon, it does not
constitute a sensible subject of public contestation and politics
(Taylor 1992, 37). It is these three dimensions of the modern recognition
order—which reach back to Hegel's treatment of the
subject—that have been primarily analyzed in the discussion
(critical Fraser 2003b, 219–222). They have even been interpreted as
genealogically distinct stages along which individual persons gain
self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem (Honneth 1992, ch. 5).
However, some have argued that a much more fundamental form of
“elementary” recognition (2.1) is underlying these modern
spheres of respect (2.2), esteem (2.3) as well as love and friendship
(2.4).

Hegel's famous idea that we gain self-consciousness only
through a process of mutual recognition (see 1.1 above) has been taken
up by some neo-Hegelian philosophers of mind. They make the
socio-ontological claim that the world is always cooperatively
(re)constructed by human agents (see Pinkard 1994, Pippin 2008, also
the contributions in Ikäheimo/Laitinen 2011). Only mutual
recognition that grants others the status of an epistemic authority
allows us to construct a normative space of reasons: I know that the
truth of my judgment depends on you being able to share it (Brandom
1994). Thus, such accounts try to explain how reason can enter the
world in the first place—and therefore this kind of elementary
recognition does not seem to depend on values or norms but rather be a
source thereof. As early as the 1960s and 1970s, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas similarly developed their respective variants
of discourse ethics stressing that the proper use of language already
presupposes a certain form of recognition of all other speakers as
equally authoritative (see on both Habermas 1991, ch. 2, critical
Wellmer 1986, 108–111). However, human beings never create their world
or the reasons they use from scratch. Rather, they are embedded in
holistic webs of meanings which they jointly reproduce (and
may hereby also redo). Theories of recognition hereby provide
the ground for a critique of atomistic views of subjectivity
(especially in Taylor 1989, part I).

Some have even argued that only empathy with other persons allows us
to take over their perspective (Cavell 1969) which, again, seems to be
a prerequisite for sharing their evaluative reasons: recognition is
primary to cognition (Honneth 2005, 40–44). These ideas have gained
additional currency by psychological findings suggesting that the
child's brain can indeed only develop cognitively if she is able
to be emotionally attached to her primary care-givers. Only by being
interested in sharing experiences with other autonomous beings does the
child gain access to the world of meaning (Tomasello 1999, Hobson
2002).

In this vein it has been argued that people come to recognize others
as persons very early on. Already the baby learns to recognize her
attachment figures as intelligible beings, i.e., as meaning-conferring
and autonomous. Quite automatically, so the argument goes, the child
then later perceives all other humans as humans. Only
afterwards the subject may become blind to this “antecedent
recognition” (Honneth 2005, 58). Such “forgetfulness of
recognition” is supposedly caused either by reifying social
practices which prompt individuals to perceive subjects merely as
objects or by ideological belief systems that depict some human beings
as non- or sub-human (Honneth 2005, 59–60).

In sum, this elementary form shows that recognition is not only
needed for the creation and preservation of a subject's identity,
but that it also denotes a basic normative attitude. Brandom emphasizes
that—besides constituting self-consciousness as an
“essentially, and not just accidentally, […]
social achievement […]—recognition is a
normative attitude. To recognize someone is to take her to be
the subject of normative statuses, that is, of commitments and
entitlements, as capable of undertaking responsibilities and exercising
authority” (Brandom 2007, 136, emphasis in original). Whereas Brandom concentrates on
rather basic normative ascriptions, all phenomena of recognition can be
described as inherently normative. In particular, there is one specific
form of recognition in modernity that seems to flow quite naturally
from our basic capacity of recognizing each other in the elementary
form sketched so far, namely equal respect.

Ever since the idea of universal human rights has been established
in modernity, assigning equal dignity or respect is commonly thought to
be the central dimension of recognition. Nearly every moral philosopher
writing today accepts this (Kantian) idea, even if not all embrace it
in the terminology of recognition. One of the authors who explicitly
does so is Thomas Scanlon. According to him, respect expresses the
foundation of morality as such, because the “contractualist ideal
of acting in accord with principles that others (similarly motivated)
could not reasonably reject is meant to characterize the relations with
others the value and appeal of which underlies our reasons to do what
morality requires. This relation […] might be called a relation
of mutual recognition. Standing in this relation to others is appealing
in itself—worth seeking for its own sake” (Scanlon 1998,
162). For Scanlon, therefore, moral blame is especially relevant because it signifies a disturbance of this basic relationship
(Scanlon 2008, critical Wallace 2012). What is valued here, again, is
autonomous agency, the capacity to respond to reasons.

Most discussions in moral and political philosophy can be seen as
disputes over what it means to recognize the other as equal, i.e., what
proper respect demands. Such respect (for the humanity in each person)
has to be distinguished from a common usage in which
“respect” denotes something quite different, namely a
certain respect for the (moral) qualities of a particular
person's character or conduct (for example, in Rawls 1971, §
67; Sennett 2003). It has been proposed that the former should be
termed “recognition respect” whereas the latter should be
labeled “appraisal respect” (Darwall 1977). Appraisal
respect resembles esteem (see 2.3 below) in that particular properties
of a person are valued—and not so much the general fact that
she is a person capable of autonomous agency. In the
following, the term “respect” will be used to denote the
attitude of “recognition respect” with regard to the equal
moral standing of persons and their demands.

As we face a continuum from severe degradation to phenomena of which
it is hotly contested whether they are disrespectful, quite a few
theories of recognition have focused on the negative experiences of
clear disrespect. In fact, the normative expectation of being
treated with respect is most obvious when we look at extreme forms of
humiliation in which specific (groups of) humans are symbolically and
consequently also materially excluded from humanity, are treated like
animals or mere objects. In response to such extreme forms of
humiliation, Margalit has concluded that our primary political aim
should be to strive for a decent society instead of a fully just one
(Margalit 1996, 271–291) and there has been some discussion about
whether recognition theory has a natural affinity with minimal or
negative theories of morality (Allen 2001).

Being faced with extreme humiliation, the interplay between
normative and psychological aspects becomes especially salient. Even if
the victims know that their degradation is unjustified, they cannot but
feel humiliated all the same. Any trust in being able to control their
lives is stripped away from them. In the course of mistreatment,
torture and rape the perpetrators do not only intentionally inflict
pain and injury on their victims but also deride the agency of the
latter. This combination undermines basic self- and world-trust (Scarry
1985; Rorty 1989, ch. 7–9; Margalit 1996, 115–119, 145).

However, even less extreme forms of mistreating persons manifest
disrespect. In these cases it is not necessarily denied that those
under discussion are humans, but rather that they have equal moral
and/or legal standing. Instead of being approached as adults, women and
people of different color, for instance, were, for the most part of
history, treated like children. They were regarded as
“second-class citizens” (Taylor 1992, 37) not capable of
responsibly reproducing and shaping the social norms of their
communities. Only equal positive rights institutionalize recognition in
a publicly manifest way and thus make it easier for the individual to
develop self-respect (Feinberg 1970, 251–253), “perhaps the most
important primary good” (Rawls 1971, § 67).

Nonetheless, there is a certain tension between recognizing somebody as
a legal rights holder and the idea of a full-fledged recognition order.
The very idea of subjective rights allows persons to step out of all
interpersonal relations and insist on their “right”
whatever reasons might be raised against that by others (Menke 2009).
Yet, in granting every subject the right to use their powers of reasons
as they see fit, law recognizes their autonomous agency. It hereby
takes into account the fact of reasonable pluralism. Although people
might disagree with each other, toleration of the other's
dissenting opinion is then supposed to be grounded in equal respect
(see Forst 2013) and not only a way of grudgingly settling for a
modus vivendi. Nonetheless, theorists of recognition (within
the Hegelian tradition) have warned that concentrating entirely on
negative liberty without considering the wider social context in which
such liberty is embedded and on which it depends might lead to social
pathologies (Honneth 2011, ch. BI.3.). With this warning they join
communitarian voices. Thus, one necessary step is to secure the
legitimacy of the legal order by ascribing equal democratic rights to
all citizens. This recognizes them as being able to orient themselves
toward the common good (and not only to their self-interest).

The major emancipatory movements of the last two centuries—for instance the women's or the civil rights movement in the US—fought for equal respect and rights. In contrast, in many of
the contemporary social struggles persons or groups demand recognition
of specific (e.g., cultural or religious) aspects of their identities
which are neglected or demeaned by the dominant value and norm system
of their society. It is these phenomena which have helped popularize
the notions of a “politics of recognition” or
“identity politics.” However, it is contested why these
differences should matter normatively: Do we owe such recognition to
the affected as subjects with equal moral status (a) or
because we should esteem their specific properties as valuable
(b)?

(a) The first reading, which claims that we owe this kind of
recognition to all subjects as equally entitled, allows only for a
context-sensitive form of respect. By pointing to differences
disregarded so far one hopes to show that the allegedly
“neutral” state (or society) is by no means neutral, but
rather based on a partial (for example, male-dominated, white,
heterosexual) interpretation of citizenship or just on an arbitrary
privileging of specific groups. Hereby all members are discriminated
who do not fit the hegemonic understanding (already Taylor 1992, 42).
If one tries to cancel out these disadvantages by taking into account
the differences, e.g., by means of affirmative action intended to
remove injustices, this serves the higher-ranking goal of treating
persons in all their particularity as of equal status (Benhabib 1992).
In order to arrive at such context-sensitive laws and regulations one
has to more fully include the affected groups into the process of
democratic decision-making, for example, through a vitalized public
sphere and formal hearings (Habermas 1993). Additionally, it has been
proposed that (formerly) oppressed groups should have a veto right with
regard to all those questions that particularly affect them (Young
1990, 183–191).

(b) In contrast, the second reading claims that we should value
particularity in itself. Such a politics of difference is not
concerned with (context-sensitive) respect, but with the esteem for
specific characteristics or entire identities of individuals and—often enough—groups.

However, the idea of group identities has been hotly contested:
Whereas some groups indeed want to (re)affirm their particular
identity, the criticism has been voiced that such a homogenous reading
of identity fails to take proper account of intersecting axes of
identification (being a woman, being black, being gay or lesbian). The
failure to admit of such heterogeneity has been suspected of
legitimizing internal oppression within minorities. According to some
scholars, all identities have to be deconstructed. Again others have
held onto the idea of group identities for political reasons (demanding
secure exit-options for individual members) or have favored rainbow
coalitions. In this context, it is also controversial whether cultures
should be valued in themselves or only in their value for individuals
and whether such cultural protection necessitates group rights (Kymlicka 1989, Taylor
1992, Habermas 1993, Laden/Owen 2007). Finally, there
seems to be an aporia as the alleged solution to equally value and
promote all cultures may be no solution at all: Arguably, to esteem
something without accurate knowledge or against one's own
convictions is no real esteem but rather manifests an additional
insult. Therefore, Taylor urges us to be “merely” maximally
open towards the alien culture and to be led by the principle that
traditions with a long history most certainly contain something
valuable (Taylor 1992, 68–71).

There is another group of scholars which has argued that esteem
should not be awarded to groups but to individuals—and not for
the latter's wholesale identities but only for specific features.
Yet, in light of the value pluralism so characteristic of modern
societies, it remains unclear who could function as an impartial judge
when it comes to determining what is (more) valuable and what is not.
Every decision seems to run the danger of merely expressing a
repressive majority opinion. Therefore, according to some accounts,
esteem should play no role in public politics whatsoever: it is
sufficient for individuals to be respected by all and to be esteemed by
only some significant others, for example, by their family, friends or
fellow members of voluntary associations (Rawls 1971, § 67;
Habermas 1993, 258).

Yet, an opposing camp claims that simply neglecting the
dimension of esteem does not do justice to our everyday experiences: We
are not only injured by humiliating behavior, but also if strangers
insult us (either in the sense of not recognizing specific
features of ourselves or actively devaluing them). After all, we have a
need to be esteemed by society “as such” in order to be
able to appear in public without shame. Bourdieu's social theory,
for example, points to the pervasiveness of evaluative patterns and
distinctions even in modern society, determining social status and
class (Bourdieu 1984). In order to solve the dilemma of having to
create an impartial value horizon for modern societies, in recent years
some authors have proposed to focus on the notion of
“achievement.” The latter is supposed to be a sufficiently
formal reference point for esteeming persons. “Achievement”
is not only of great significance within capitalistic societies but
remains open for historically and interculturally different ideas of
what kind of achievement should count as relevant (Honneth 1992, 126;
2003, 140–142; Margalit 1996, 46–47). It is supposed to allow for
individual particularity (one's own achievement) but still to retain
a common reference point (the contribution to the common good, however
that may be defined). From this perspective, mass unemployment, for
instance, is a social pathology because it denies this form of esteem
to large parts of the population. This could only be counteracted by
acknowledging activities outside of the labor market as achievements so
that every citizen has the chance to see herself as a person who
contributes to the flourishing of her society. Additionally, it
constitutes an injustice if activities are devalued for arbitrary
reasons (e.g., if specific jobs lose their status just because the
ratio of women holding them increases, see Honneth 2003, 153, or if
women earn less than men for doing the same job).

Three sorts of arguments have been leveled against this idea of
focusing on achievement. First, some have argued that it is impossible
to find culturally neutral criteria of merit (Young 1990, 200–206). But
if this were true, the problem that was supposed to be solved only
reappears again: we can only expect such recognition from those who
share with us the same standards of achievement. Second, the market is
not interested so much in skills, but in outputs demanded by others
regardless of the skills involved (see Schmidt am Busch 2011, 46–47).
Third, even if the citizenry could come up with a convincing standard,
there remains a “recognition gap”: not all, perhaps not
even the central features that render us valuable in our own eyes can
be understood as “achievements” in the sense of
contributing to the common good (Iser 2008, 193).

Nonetheless, by highlighting the human dependency on evaluative
horizons of esteem, many theories of recognition share important
characteristics with communitarian approaches. The idea of a common,
more substantial “ethical life” is especially important for
those who think that we can only flourish if we live in
meaning-bestowing relationships of mutual recognition. In such
relationships people are supposed to experience the needs, desires and
goals of their alter ego not so much as limitations but rather as
furtherances of their own “social” freedom (in this vein
Taylor 1992, 33–34; Neuhouser 2000, esp. ch. 1; Pippin 2008, ch. 7;
Honneth 2011, ch. A.III.). The individual can only experience her deeds
as really hers in living and acting in concert with others and feeling
at home in the society's institutions. Here recognition is not
only a precondition for valuing one's own (perhaps still
individual) projects but is itself an integral part of (essentially
social) endeavors. According to this picture, we face a lack of freedom
where such relationships of mutual recognition are not fully realized.
Thus, these accounts follow Hegel in generalizing experiences drawn
from the intimate sphere of loving relationships.

Relationships of loving care are deemed important within
psychologically oriented recognition theories (Benjamin 1988, Honneth
1992) because such emotionally fulfilling interactions are supposed to
display the first form of recognition humans experience. The
unconditional care by a parent provides the baby with the feeling of
security and of being loved, and thus to be worthy of love. This world-
and self-trust is taken to later enable the child to value her own
projects and align the role standards that grow increasingly more
complicated in the course of her development and to critically question
them (Mead 1934, Habermas 1988). Most of those who endorse the
relevance of love also stress the importance of the affective
dimension for all subsequent forms of recognition (Honneth 2011,
C.III.1).

Following the idea that recognition should always affirm certain
aspects of the other person, there has been some controversy about what
exactly we recognize in other persons when we love them or regard them
as friends. After all, we seem to embrace them in their entire (and
changing) personality and could not just replace them with others who
may have similar characteristics. Whereas some think that we still
respond to some valuable trait, namely the autonomous core of the loved
one's personality (Velleman 1999, 366–374), others think that the
relationship itself creates a value that is worth caring for (Frankfurt
2004).

Furthermore, as love embraces the entire
personality of individuals it has been proposed that it is this
experience, anchored in early childhood, that provides subjects with a
permanent motivational resource for demanding recognition for ever more
aspects of their identity, and thus for further moral progress. This
may, of course, in its extreme form of desiring to be recognized in all
one's features by all persons be a mere utopia (along these lines
Honneth 2002, 504). Theories such as those of Emmanuel Lévinas
(1961, section III) or Jacques Derrida (1990, 959) depict concrete
others as demanding an infinite sensibility and care toward them.
Although we often have to relativize these “demands” in
light of competing claims of others and for reasons of
overdemandingness (Forst 2011, 36–37), these theories generally point
to the possibility of having to redraw the boundaries between different
spheres of recognition. This could, for example, lead to a revised
understanding of solidarity being not only a task of families or close
friends but of entire societies, namely in the form of a welfare
state.

Although politics might not be directly responsible for
this form of recognizing concrete individuality, there are nevertheless
indirect possibilities to protect and to shape its basic conditions. By
means of effective law enforcement politics assures the individual that
the trust (in one's environment as well as one's own body),
acquired in intimate relations since childhood (see Taylor 1992, 36–37),
is not forcibly destroyed from the outside, e.g., by maltreatment,
torture or rape (some, as Owen 2007, 308, even mention natural
disasters although these catastrophes do not damage interpersonal
trust). Additionally, some of the social conditions that make it more
challenging to succeed in intimate relations can be improved
politically. This is, for example, valid for inflexible or very long
working hours for parents and bad child care offers, for demands of
high mobility which endanger intimate relationships, or for the
cultural patterns that devalue reciprocity between partners, e.g., by
favoring negligence and recklessness as “masculine.”

Despite the differentiation of these four dimensions of recognition,
in the middle of the 1990s, Nancy Fraser (but also Rorty 1999) voiced
the concern that, at least in the political context of the US, the
increasingly influential “identity politics” threatened to
replace the issue of redistribution on the political agenda. She
insisted—against Taylor and Honneth—that only
recognition and redistribution taken together would allow for
the right kind of justice, namely the ideal of “participatory
parity” that guarantees each subject an equal participation in
public life. While redistribution secures the objective condition of
such an ideal, recognition safeguards its intersubjective condition
(Fraser 2003a, 36). Fraser tries to illustrate the independency of
recognition and redistribution by way of two examples: Whereas homosexuals
suffer primarily from culturally discriminating practices of
humiliation, workers are first and foremost the victims of economic
exploitation. Though homosexuals also have to struggle with economic
disadvantages and the achievements of the workers have been
ideologically demeaned as less valuable, the real cause of the
injustice in the former case lies within the cultural sphere whereas in
the latter it lies within the economic sphere (Fraser 1996, ch. 1;
2003a, 50–54). Thus, Fraser categorizes different forms of injustice
according to their socioeconomic roots. Her main point is, nonetheless,
that in most cases of injustice we are dealing with a combination of
cultural disrespect and economic exploitation. As especially fitting
examples Fraser refers to groups categorized along the lines of gender
or race. Thus, women and people of different color suffer not only
from a discriminating status order, but also from an economy which is
based on encoding unpaid housework and badly paid labor as female as
well as auxiliary and superfluous work as colored. Only a
two-dimensional theory such as the one she suggests can—according to Fraser—pay proper attention to practical conflicts
between policies of redistribution and recognition. On the one hand, if
one redistributes without considering the relations of recognition
involved, the receivers might be stigmatized as “social
parasites,” and thus disrespected. On the other hand, generally
legitimate policies of recognition may lead to normatively undesirable
side-effects by dramatically worsening the economic position of the
affected persons, as measures against reification through prostitution
and pornography might very well do when they render those engaged in
these lines of work unemployed (Fraser 2003a, 65; see for a thorough
discussion the contributions in Olsen 2008).

In light of this criticism, Axel Honneth has insisted that the
concept of recognition can be applied to questions of distributive
justice, but that it is important to properly differentiate between the
dimensions of respect and esteem: First, our understanding of what we
owe to others on account of their equal status as autonomous persons
has itself been historically extended and now entails social rights.
Accordingly, the affected persons can at least claim qua equal
citizens—and thus in the name of a politics of respect—that amount of basic goods that is necessary for enabling them to
effectively use their legal entitlements. Secondly, they can refer to
the criterion of achievement which is supposed to be constitutive of
capitalism—as an (also) cultural entity—in order to
demand a more adequate remuneration of their work (Honneth 2003,
151–154; see 2.3 above). Only if one understands redistribution in this
way, that is, as a problem of recognition, can one—according to
Honneth—explain why the affected experience outrage: namely
because they deem their identity to be threatened by a perceived
injustice. What counts as an injustice, therefore, depends on our
reasonable expectations of recognition: Justice and recognition
mutually illuminate each other.

However, Fraser has responded by arguing that most problems
associated with global injustice are not primarily due to
misrecognition but rather stem from systemic features of capitalism,
such as when multinational enterprises relocate factories and lay off
workers in order to maximize profits and share-holder interests (Fraser
2003b, 214–215). Subsequently, there has been quite some debate with
regard to what extent and how fruitfully global capitalism can be
explained and criticized in terms of recognition—and what role
functional imperatives play within such an account (see, for example,
the contributions in Schmidt am Busch/Zurn 2010, 241–318).

Struggles for recognition—that need not be fought by violent
means, just think of the Indian liberation movement under Mahatma
Gandhi—are supposed to effect moral progress toward ever more
just or fulfilling relations of recognition. Therefore, some authors,
especially those interested in social criticism, have proposed to use
recognition as a new paradigm for Critical Theory (Honneth 1992, see
also Iser 2008, Deranty 2009). Such a “critical theory of
recognition” is supposed to evaluate whether societies provide
their citizens with the necessary “primary good” of social
recognition.

Because some theories of recognition are not only concerned with
questions of justice but also with a formal theory of the good life
designed to illuminate the social conditions of individual flourishing
(or negatively, of social pathologies) this has sparked the critique
that such approaches are too “sectarian” (Fraser 2003, 30;
similar Zurn 2000, 121): Any reference to the telos of a good
life (or the specific idea of individuality or authenticity) proves to
be a non-starter (or just eurocentric). In reply, proponents of such a
broader account of social philosophy have insisted that the emphasis on
a society that recognizes as many features of individuals as possible,
hereby promoting their autonomy, does not prescribe how to live. It
only spells out the intersubjective conditions which provide everybody
with the chance to live the life they want to lead (be it autonomously
chosen or not), namely in a social environment where this life is
either adequately recognized or at least not looked upon derogatively
(Honneth 2003, 177).

Some authors have emphasized that speaking of recognition as a vital
human need cannot mean that every struggle for recognition is (equally)
justified (Alexander/Pia Lara 1996). We still require criteria to
distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate struggles. Certainly,
those who fight for more recognition think that they deserve it. But
obviously their belief can be false if the claims are unjustified or
exaggerated. As all instances of legitimate criticism remind us:
Neither every negative description of a person('s self-image) nor
every challenge of her current status position—as hurtful as
such “challenges” might be for the affected person—is necessarily a form of misrecognition. Quite to the contrary, only by
being subject to well-meaning criticism can we improve ourselves.

Therefore, those who defend a primarily normative account of
recognition (and humiliation) distance themselves from what they
perceive as the problems of overly psychological approaches. On the one
hand, they claim, due to adapted preferences persons might not even
(emotionally) register when they are in fact treated disrespectfully.
On the other hand, persons might feel slighted because they hold
utterly unreasonable views in the first place, e.g., if Nazis think
that they ought to be treated as super-humans or if a mediocre painter
expects others to view him as a genius (Margalit 1996, 9; Fraser 2003,
37–42; Iser 2008, 216–221).

But how do we come by the normative criteria of adequate
recognition? Whereas Kantian contractualists ask themselves which
standards are acceptable to all (in a hypothetical choice situation),
most theories of recognition follow a more Hegelian route. They argue
that the social practices of recognition in which subjects live already
provide them with all the normative resources needed to criticize and
transcend these practices. Thus, Hegelian theories of recognition in
all their variations choose an interpretative or—perhaps more
adequately—reconstructive path: Because we are socialized into
a specific recognition order we also internalize (via the exchange with
and through the “view” of others) a given space of
(historical) reasons that shapes our practical identity and our
normative expectations springing from this identity. This is also
supposed to explain the close connection between the normative and the
psychological dimension of recognition: On account of our
intersubjectively acquired identity we have a psychological need to be
recognized as having the normative status we deem to deserve.
Consequently, because it is a normatively structured need to the
disappointment of which we usually react with indignation, its
appropriateness can always be questioned by reference to the reasons
available to us (Iser 2008, 173).

One way to make progress then is to criticize problematic ways of
thinking of and relating to others' characteristics by pointing
to already established principles of recognition. This would, for
example, entail arguing for women's rights on the basis of the
idea of equal dignity of all “men” or for higher wages for
workers by reference to already established notions of desert. Thus, it
is always possible to bring to bear aspects which were disregarded up
to now by referring to the “surplus validity” of an already
established abstract principle of recognition (Honneth 2003, 186).
According to this view, moral progress takes place by way of a
laborious sorting out of reasons that are shown to be implausible.
However, this still leaves open the question of how radical such a
critique can be, i.e., whether it can only proceed in a
context-dependent and peace-meal way or whether the very logic of
recognition provides us with more abstract criteria of progress, such
as egalitarian inclusion and the recognition of ever more aspects of
individuals that fosters their autonomy (Honneth 2003, 184–185).

Sometimes such critical reflections on one's society are
triggered by emotional impulses. Thus, the psychoanalytic tradition
refers to suppressed, but unconsciously still effective drives or
experiences. These approaches always search, albeit in a speculative
manner, for a motive people may have to transcend the given recognition
order. These drives or experiences may be described, following Freud,
as libidinous energies or rather as the positively connotated
recollection of a state of infant omnipotence (Whitebook 1996). In
recent times, object relations theory has been used to highlight the
traumatically experienced end of an original symbiosis (between a baby
and her primary care-giver) which we supposedly strive to regain
throughout our entire life (Benjamin 1988).

But regardless of the way subjects reach the conviction that they
must claim recognition for new, so far neglected or—even worse—demeaned aspects of their identity, the following question must
be asked: From where do they gain the mental strength to at least
temporarily withstand the disrespect or indifference of (at least many
of) their surrounding others? The assumption that without recognition
by all others it is inevitable that we suffer psychological breakdown
is much too strong. In spite of disrespect, the capacity for
agency which is necessary for resistance may spring from three
motivational sources. First, the oppressed subjects can, under certain
circumstances, still draw upon the assurance that they acquired in a
(more or less) happy childhood. Secondly, social movements of
resistance often create enough motivational energy by recognizing each
other within these movements, e.g., within the civil rights movement.
As a consequence, the disrespect shown by the rest of society at least
weighs less heavily. Finally, the idea that members of a better society
in the future, though merely imagined, would one day grant the desired
recognition, might function as a third source of the mental strength
needed to endure (Mead 1934, 199).

Some authors are not very optimistic about the prospects of
emancipation through struggles of recognition. If our expectations of
being recognized as X are always contingent upon the social and
historical context we live in, how is moral and political progress
possible at all? Is it—in view of our basic dependency on the
view of others—not more likely that our striving for
recognition leads to uncritical conformity instead of an emancipatory
struggle for recognition? It is just this suspicion which is expressed
by the French Marxist Louis Althusser. He regards recognition
as the central ideological mechanism by which the state
confronts its citizens with the choice between obedience and the loss
of social existence (Althusser 1970, 174–176). Hereby, Althusser
follows a specifically French tradition that does not primarily
conceptualize recognition as the condition of intersubjective freedom,
but as a source of estrangement: Already in
Rousseau's Second Discourse on Inequality (Rousseau
1755) individuals lose themselves in vain pretense, because they
inauthentically attempt to please others (for a more positive reading
see Neuhouser 2010). Finally, in the work of Jean-Paul Sartre
individuals are reified by every kind of recognition because even the
affirmation of others freezes the subjects in their present state,
hereby denying their potential for change, i.e., their freedom (Sartre
1943, esp. 347–361). According to this tradition, we do not suffer
primarily from the fact that we are not recognized, but rather from
the fact that we are held captive within a specific pattern of
socially mandated recognition (Bedorf 2010). Struggles for recognition
only entangle us ever deeper in a wrong dependency on power relations
the workings of which we fail to adequately grasp. Whereas
left-Hegelian approaches are designed to positively overcome
ideological recognition orders for the purposes of social progress
(Honneth 2004), post-structuralists maintain that one should not ask
which features of one's identity should be recognized. In doing
so we only remain caught within the old (ideological) categories and
are forced to define clear-cut identities. Rather, one should
question struggles for recognition as to whether and to what extent
they increase spaces of freedom to think and act differently (Tully
2000, 469). Such work, often inspired by Michel Foucault, has also
pointed to the motivational problem of all resistance to the
established recognition order: How can you reject exactly those
categories that constitute your identity? Does social criticism not
necessary imply self-denial? Judith Butler has tried to circumvent
this alleged paradox by pointing out that norms never remain valid by
themselves but need constant reaffirmation. This process hereby opens
up possibilities of—at least slightly—“reconfiguring” the dominant norms and changing
one's own identity (Butler 1997a, ch. 3; 1997b, 13, 40–41). Some
authors even want to replace a politics of recognition with a politics
of acknowledgment: an acknowledgment that we can never be sure about
the changing identities (and thus normative claims) of others but have
to remain open to new and unpredictable developments (Markell 2003,
180). In a similar vein, feminist thinkers have claimed that the
entire idea of being recognized in one's given identity makes it
impossible for us to gain an adequate understanding of how power and
agency not simply react to such an identity but rather create it as an
“embodied” identity in the first place (McNay
162–197).

Even those who think that one can—at least conceptually—conceive of non-ideological forms of recognition have started
to pay more attention to the ways in which relationships of recognition
are always also relationships of power (see the contributions in van
den Brink/Owen 2007). This becomes especially urgent if one realizes,
as already indicated above, that values and norms—being
products of human thought and attitudes—can express disrespect
even if those who follow them are not really aware of this. Subjects
may attempt to convey recognition within a framework that is itself
disrespectful. For example, a lord in the 18th century who
treated his maid according to the accepted norms of that time—for example, by treating her as if she was invisible—may not
have (intentionally) disrespected her with regard to the socially valid
system of norms and values. Thus, he might have been considered a
“decent” lord according to prevailing standards (whereas
other lords might have been described as “cruel”, etc.).
However, at least some probably want to say that this lord—in
another sense—did not adequately respect his maid (and that
therefore the social changes since then manifest moral progress).
Nonetheless, some authors regard even ideological recognition (as
being, for example, a dutiful maid) as something positive insofar as it
strengthens the subject's sense of worth and is clearly superior
to acts of misrecognition (Honneth 2004, 323–347). Yet, others may
mourn such ideological recognition for the incapacitating effects on
the recognized subjects' will to resist.

However, even if attitudes and acts of recognition are a much more
ambivalent blessing than might have been presumed at first sight,
recognition theory does not only illuminate the complexity of our
normative thinking but also provides a strong argument that such
normative considerations are an ineradicable part of our social world.
The concept of recognition therefore also serves an important
explanatory function.

O'Neill, S., and N. Smith, (eds.), Recognition
Theory as Social Research: Investigating the Dynamics of Social
Conflict, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Owen, D., 2007,
“Self-Government and ‘Democracy as Reflexive
Co-operation.’ Reflections on Honneth's Social and
Political ldeal,” in Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and
the Tradition of Critical Social Theory, B. van den Brink, and D.
Owen (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 290–320.

Rousseau, J.-J., 1755,
“Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men
or Second Discourse,” in The Discourses and other
early political writings, V.Gourevitch (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 1997, pp. 111–222.